dimarts, 9 de novembre del 2010

You need to learn English!

Por Roberto Izquierdo Herrera,
estudiante de Diseño curricular de la EF

Hi everybody!

Following the advice published at the blog, I went to the conference given by David Kirk at the beginning of the Master-s semestre. Of course, he spoke in English, his mother tongue, thus I'm going to resume my impressions in his language. I was specially surprised about the lecture turning over a basic topic: the language-dependence.

Kirk has been doing research on the trends of PE (physical education) in Europe for a long time. As we can learn through the numerous questions answered on the blog, PE.refers to a specific topic for us. That topic is close to the idea of PE in Europe, which Kirk's work was trying to define more clearly. I'm going shortly tell you the method he followed in order to do it.

He focused on four different reviews; all of them published in English. Three in Europe and one in the UUEE. Those were European Physical Education Review (EPER), Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy (PESP), European Journal of Physical Education (EJPE) and Sport, Education and Society (SE&S). He chose these ones because they are the most relevant ones within all the academic publication about PE.

The use of English as the main language causes that most of the publishers in Europe are from the United Kingdom. This means that all the research done in Europe which has not been translated into English will probably never be read abroad. Kirk found that there was very poor investigation in our field (it was only from and for English speaking countries). This made him think, and he discovered that most of the research in Europe was not being published in English, therefore turning into a big problem: the world will never read it.

Other countries were Wales (9); Finland (8); Germany (6); Cyprus (5); Denmark (4); Netherlands (2); Portugal (2); Estonia (2); Russia (3); Turkey (2); Slovenia (1); Malta (1); Czech R (1); Switzerland (1)
Movimento, Porto Alegre, v. 16, n. 02, p. 11¬43, abril/junho de 2010

The above table (in Kirk, 2010b) hows the amount of papers published by Spanish writers in worldwide reviews. Only 11 while English researchers published 156!

Guys, if we do not learn English, we will not be able to tell the others about our discoveries nor learn about their ones. GO FOR IT!

References:Kirk, D. (2010a). Situación actual y tendencias futuras de la investigación sobre la EF en Europa: algunas cuestiones cruciales que explican por qué la investigación es importante. In 5th International Congress and XXVI National Conference of the INEFC, University of Barcelona, Spain, 4-6 February 2010.Kirk, D. (2010b). Why research matters: Current status and future trends in physical education pedagogy. Movimento, v. 16, n. 02, p. 11¬43.

6 comentaris:

Unknown ha dit...

Firstly, we would like to agree with Roberto about it is essential to learn English to be capable of writing and understanding publications so, these could be known internationally. Also, to have a good level of written and spoken English is already pre-requisite for entering to a job in our area, not only for those who are with the aim of teaching but also performance or management.

Most of us are up to our neck in this matter, but the truth is we should have been more active in learning the foreign language, because we knew we would benefit in all the fields and it was not until Administration has imposed it, we have not reacted.

Secondly, we believe that the way of children learn English in their early stages, most of time is poor. Although there have been significant changes in recent years, some people who have lived the experience of being English teacher in Spain told us that the level of English at University is unsatisfactory. So maybe, it would have to be a renovation, but always starting from the base, the beginning of learning stages of children.

Moreover, we are really interested in this subject and we would like you could give us more information about the speech of David Kirk in our UV, because it is an issue that concern us.

Written by Javier Ferrer García and Diego Ferri Marín

sergi ha dit...

But we're so proud of having the best movie benders in the world. We're idiots. It's a fact.

Anònim ha dit...

Are you saying that English is the only way to tell the others about our discoveries? That’s it? Just for that? So, if I want to be a teacher of P.E at school, or to be a coach in a sport team, or… I don’t know, work in a gym, for example… you don’t think is not necessary to learn English?
I’m a person who likes to learn new languages, it’s my way of being and I know that it’s subjective. But, apart from that, I think that if you want to have more opportunities to look for a job, the fact of knowing differents languages can to help you to found it, and, especially, if you live in a tourist country, like we do.
Like I was saying… that it’s subjective.

JM (estudiante de Diseño Curricular de Educación Física)

Jose R. ha dit...

PART:1/2
In line with what Javier and Diego said, I’d like to highlight the fact that English is a pre-requisite for almost any type of job nowadays (not just for the ones in our field). Currently, the world is getting more and more globalized, which creates the need for a common language (or better say, people who master that language) through which everybody can communicate properly. The investigation area is one of the fields in which, if investigators share the same language (English, in this case) really eases the task of increasing the circulation of their results.
I once read a classification (“Enseñar en tiempos inciertos”) of different society change levels… One of them was defined as “intra-generational” and it only affected the people in just one generation; another level was the “inter-generational”, in which the change took place from one generation to the other. We could adapt that definition to this particular case, saying that, a study maid, let’s say, in Germany, would only stay in that country, being its content therefore classified as a “intra-borders knowledge”, and most likely it won’t reach out of those borders, so we’ll never get to know about it.
On the other hand, if that same German investigators group published that same article in English, (and assuming that everyone was able to read and comprehend English… - “LOL” -), we could all access to that work and figure out what the results were and how the study got place. Therefore, that knowledge would become “inter-borders knowledge”. This would make our job radically easier. Finding information would be much unproblematic and being up to date wouldn’t take as much as it takes currently.

Jose R. ha dit...

PART:2/2
However, it seems that (and more in relation to what Sergi said before…) we like it the way it is now. It’s easier to sit back and wait than doing anything to improve our situation. Everybody says that, “yes, English is important”, but nobody does the effort to learn it (not even try to!).
Knowing how to properly speak, read and write English is a vital skill that none of us should miss! We’re about to finish our University Studies and I support the idea that, every single business of nowadays, ends up being international (or at least, tries to). We’ve always been taught that knowing our competitors is the very key-factor when trying to outstand from the others... English, looking at how our competitors are in our market right now, may determine whether you outstand or remain within the “commons”.
I agree with the fact that learning a new language requires a lot of dedication, as much as it needs time. But I’m also aware that most of us take the wrong decision, and think that we should all reflect a little and prioritize on what it is more worth for us: Watching a soccer game on TV, or practicing some really useful skill (let’s say…English)?
Comment by: José R. Ramada (Diseño curricular de la EF)

Julio Espí ha dit...

First, i delivery of the idea that learn languages is essential, and if it is english one of them better because it is the language world.I am aware that the Spanish have a very low level of english, is more, i have friends who have been erasmus and they say that us next to Italian and Portuguese are Europeans that worst level we have. Little by little i think that we will go putting the height of the other countries. Today, to make the master of education is necessary to take the level b1, in the ESO have a subject "ciudadania" given in english...
For my part i pledge to enter more than in full in the study of english from now. proof of this is the opinion that i'm writing